Hammerli model 100 free pistol.
This report covers:
I had planned to test the Air Venturi Avenger for accuracy on high power today, but I woke up with a froggy throat and flem in my lungs. I took Oregamax which kills stuff like this in 24 hours, but I’m still draggin’. So I thought I would update you with an older report that I am resurrecting — the .22 rimfire Hammerli 100 free pistol. Today we will learn about how updated ammunition makes everything old new again.
Apologies
First my apologies for not using the umlaut (two dots that change the pronunciation of the letter) over the letter “a” in the name Hammerli. Those who speak and read German know this Swiss firm uses an a with an umlaut in their name. I could spell it Haemmerli, which is the correct way when you don’t have the ability to write an umlaut but then a lot of other folks would get confused. So in this series it’s just going to be Hammerli.
Recap
Parts 1 through 3 are worth a read, but a quick recap is this — I have wanted a free pistol since first reading about them in the 1950s. And the Hammerli 100 that swept the podium (gold, silver and bronze) at the Olympics in 1948 and 1952 is the poster-child of free pistols the world over. After Hammerli changed hands, their venerable model 33 free pistol became the model 100.
The Hammerli 100 swept the podium at the 1948 Olympics in London and the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki.
Free Pistol
These pistols cost over $2,000 new today and a large fraction of that for a nice one that’s used. There’s nothing free about them! Free refers to the design parameters of the pistol. The pistol must be held in one hand, only, and no other body part may touch it while shooting. The design of the grips is unrestricted, other than they cannot extend back beyond the hand. They can wrap around your hand and hold you so securely that you have to shake hands with the pistol to get into the grip. The sights must be non-optical and lasers are not permitted. Other than that plus the need to be safe, these guns are fairly free from restrictions.
The barrel length is unrestricted. The barrel on my pistol is 11-1/8-inches long and is octagonal. They did come in other lengths, but each length has a different weight associated with it and a different balance. The weight of the gun is unrestricted. This is a pistol built for just one purpose — shooting the highest score in a 60-shot offhand match at 50 meters in two hours. Compared to a free pistol a 10-meter air pistol has a greater number of physical restrictions that limit the design.
Martini action
The Hammerli has a Martini action, which is generically called a falling block. The breech block is pivoted at the rear and drops in the front to allow a single cartridge to be loaded. On the left side of the action is a lever that moves down to set the trigger.
The action remains open (breech block down so you can see into the breech) when the gun is uncocked. A lever beneath the grip is pushed back to raise the breech block and cock the striker. If you want to uncock the action, this lever has a locking tab built into its back. Restrain the main lever and push the locking tab forward and the breech block will lower under the striker spring tension. Once the block is all the way down, push on the back of the locking tab (towards the muzzle) and the extractor slides back, removing the cartridge from the chamber.
The breech remains open as long as the pistol isn’t loaded. When you load a cartridge, a lever under the grip is pushed forward to raise the breech and cock the striker. But the pistol will still not fire until the trigger is set by pushing down on the lever seen here on the left.
A lever beneath the grip is pushed back to raise the breech block and cock the striker. If you want to uncock the action, this lever has a locking tab built into its back. Restrain the main lever and push the locking tab forward and the breech block will lower under the striker spring tension. Once the block is all the way down, push on the back of the locking tab (towards the muzzle) and the extractor slides back, removing the cartridge from the chamber.
Pull this lever back (to the left) to close the breech block and cock the striker. Push forward on the tab (arrow) to unlock the lever and uncock the action. Push the lever all the way forward to move the cartridge extractor.
Back to 2024
We’re back to today and the issue I had testing the pistol back in April of 2016 was it wouldn’t chamber some of the ammunition I tried to use. So why this Part 4 today? Because I recently discovered ammunition that will work in the pistol. And this ammo is now available. It’s just a matter of testing to find out what works best.
This photo shows why some ammo (the two cartridges on the left) worked and other ammo (the two on the right) didn’t.
A couple things
I knew in 2016 why the ammo was an issue. The pistol’s barrel is rifled right to the end of the chamber. There is no leade (tapered rifling that allows full-bodied bullets to enter the rear of the barrel) into the rifling. I could have had that rectified easily enough by a gunsmith. The pistol’s grips are also ever-so-slightly too large for my hands to hold comfortably. The trigger is slightly too much of a reach for my fingers. I could have rectified that as well with a wood rasp and wood putty. But you don’t paint flames behind the wheel wells of a $100,000 1963 Corvette split-window coupe and you don’t modify a Hammerli 100 free pistol. What you do is find ammunition that works. There was an ammo shortage in the US in 2016 but that is over. So I looked and found some.
Now that .22 ammo is available in the U.S. again, I was able to find three more cartridges that will chamber in my Hammerli pistol — Eley Target, CCI Long Target and CCI CB Long.
From the left, CCI Long Rifle Standard Speed that does not chamber, and Eley Target, CCI Long Target and CCI CB Long that all do. Looking at the slight differences between the two long rifle cartridges on the left you can see how tight the Hammerli’s chamber and bore are.
Twenty-two long cartridges have the same length case as long rifle cartridges but their 29-grain bullets are shorter. The CB Long can be shot indoors and produces 32 foot-pounds of muzzle energy, so the rubber mulch box is perfect to stop it. The Eley Target is made for target shooting and the CCI Long Target is a cartridge I never heard of before searching this time. It looks like I have some fun shooting and testing awaiting me. And there may be many more cartridges from which to choose, once I find out what’s out there.
The lesson
Benjamin Franklin said, “Make haste slowly” which is what I did. It took several years for the ammunition situation to improve in the US, and now that it has I can test my dream target pistol once again.
Summary
Today we have seen the effect of timing on your shooting game. Now is a great time to own one of history’s finest target pistols.
Tom,
Just when I thought you were going to do the accuracy test you drop us off at the brink. Will be hoping that the accuracy will be as you expect it to be.
Siraniko
I am glad you are able to finally enjoy your dream gun.
I hope the ammo choices available do it justice..
That pistol does feel good in the hand, and it just exudes fine German craftsmanship.
But unfortunately I know my wiggles and jiggles would not do it justice on the score card.
Since Umarex bought Hammerli in 2006 I wonder if they are still competitive in the event.
I haven’t kept up with how Hammerli ranks in the current Olympic standings.
(my apologies also for not using the umlaut, I know what it is, but didn’t know the proper name for it until today)I just called it the dotted A..
Please forgive me, I grew up in rural Louisiana, English is not my native language.
Ian
B.B.
What ammo did they shoot in the Olympics?
If a pistol can be sexy, this is it!
-Yogi
Speaking of ammo, I thought I would post this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4m9pEksprk
Isn’t beauty in the eyes of the beholder Yogi? This Hämmerli is very well crafted but I wouldn’t call it sexy or beautiful.
B.B.
When loading a cartridge, did you try “twisting it in”? Maybe, try going with the rifling, yes go with the flow…lol
-Y
Gee, need to check “head sizes” on bullets too…
Yogi,
The cartridge contacts the rifling with about 1/10-inch remaining outside the chamber. There is nothing to grab onto to twist it in. I thought about just ramming the breechblock up with force, but since these are rimfire cartridges I decided not to.
BB
How about pushing with a dowel, flat side of course.
-Yogi
Yogi,
The cartridge is in a place where it is impossible to push straight. All a dowel could do is press against 15 degrees of the rim. Again — not advisable.
BB
BB,
If this grip is too loose and long for your hand, it might fit mine just right.
Although that is a nice looking pistol, I think I would rather have a rifle based on that action. I never was much of a pistolero.
The quality of that is quite plain for all to see.
That’s a beautiful pistol! I need to read the first three blogs to get all the details. And I need to get some of the CCI CB Long ammo.
A word of caution about whatever bug is affecting your lungs. Go to the urgent care place if it doesn’t immediately respond to the meds you took. We visited a sister-in-law in the hospital recently who is home now but had a rough time with whatever is going around these days. Also, my wife had a very rough time with it a few weeks ago, but did go to urgent care before it got any worse.
Elmer,
Thanks for your concern, but oil of oregano is more powerful than most antibiotics. In 2001 after the Twin Towers fell there was a scare about anthrax being mailed by terrorists. The government told people that cipro was the best inoculation against anthrax, but the supply of it was soon exhausted. Then the government admitted that the only other thing that killed anthrax was oil of oregano. Check it out.
BB
Interesting, I hadn’t heard of this before. I definitely will check it out. Take care, and get well!
Amen.
Between new Covid, RSV, and the flu, this will be a dangerous winter.
Care, caution, should be the order of the day…
-Y
BB,
I hope you feel well soon. That is a fabulous looking pistol and I’m looking forward to hearing more about it.
Before Windows became a computer thing, we used ASCII code to make screen pictures and make characters that aren’t on the keyboard. You can make the ä by holding down the ALT key and typing three numbers on the number pad.
ALT 132 = ä, as in Hämmerli
ALT 248 = °, as in 32°F
ALT 0188 = ¼ (nice, compact)
Here is a link to the sheet of ASCII codes that you can type into a document.
https://www.reddit.com/r/geek/comments/38wiro/alt_codes_reference_sheet/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Will
Will,
On the Das Keyboard alt 132 gives you this: ¡£™ .
B B
BB,
Once again, I give incomplete information. You have to keep the ALT key pressed while you enter the numbers from the number pad. After the last number has been entered, release the ALT key.
W
Will,
Okay.
¡£™
BB
Does not work with FM’s Lenovo Yoga keyboard, using Windows 11. But Cheatin’ FM won’t be denied his diacriticals so he searches online, finds the umlaut-ed word, then copies and pastes. Just in case you want to go to all the trouble. It helps to be an OCD-type.
Thanks for the Oregamax tip – and take care of yourself; lots of serious respiratory disease out there.
Keep trying, Will. This is almost as entertaining as airguns.
“Das” keyboard, indeed. Das vedanya, keyboard! 😉
Roamin,
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00JG01QTY/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_plhdr=t&aaxitk=b48f5288da46930048b25186ebb78a87&hsa_cr_id=7410685330401&qid=1704981362&sr=1-1-9e67e56a-6f64-441f-a281-df67fc737124&ref_=sbx_be_s_sparkle_mcd_asin_0_img&pd_rd_w=0gXKF&content-id=amzn1.sym.417820b0-80f2-4084-adb3-fb612550f30b%3Aamzn1.sym.417820b0-80f2-4084-adb3-fb612550f30b&pf_rd_p=417820b0-80f2-4084-adb3-fb612550f30b&pf_rd_r=R0WPG48X67CS370P2E9J&pd_rd_wg=cvRsZ&pd_rd_r=5badd4db-10bf-4e7e-b8f9-50cd28f818d9
BB
Wow. I thought you were making a joke about DOS, as in your keyboard predated Windows. Now I have keyboard envy, not just airgun envy.
In my version of MS Word, I can make the ä in two ways:
1) I can go to the Insert menu, select Symbol, then scroll down the available characters till I find an ä.
2) doing #1 shows me a shortcut: Ctrl+:,A. After some experimenting, this is Ctrl and Shift and the semicolon-colon key all at the same time, then release and type an a or an A, and it will appear with the umlaut. The same procedure can be applied to other vowels. HTH.
Roamin,
I cannot use MS Word for the blog. It inserts formatting characters that have to be removed before WordPress will work. I use a rich text format (.rtf) generator called Simple Text.
OK, I thought you “saved as” a .rtf file before uploading. Still there should be a way. Perhaps Simple Text can switch between languages?
BB,
Let’s try it again, let’s see if this makes ¢s.
press ALT, type 1, 3, and 2 on the number pad, THEN release the ALT key. You should see the character ä.
So in use, H(press and hold ALT, type132, release ALT)mmerli = Hämmerli
Exponents are pretty groovy: x²
Greek letters can be made: α, Θ, Ω, ß, π
Roamin, I thought it was Dos vedanya, as in two of them…
¿Alles clar?,
Will
Roamin,
H¡£™mmerli.
Let’s forget this — eh? It’s wasting time and I explained how to work around umlauts if I wanted.
RR
Back to ammo, B.B. – you may want to look into CCI Quiet .22; might work with your pistol if available in “long” size. It may only be manufactured as a Long Rifle cartridge.
Basil,
I may have already tried Quiets, but I can’t remember. If I did I probably still have some on hand.
BB
BB, this guy was quite the shooter in this event; but I wish they mentioned what pistol he used:
Jin Jong-oh (진종오; Korean pronunciation: [tɕin.dʑoŋ.o]; born 24 September 1979) is a South Korean sports shooter who competed at the 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics. The only individual four-time Olympic champion in shooting, he is the most successful individual shooter at the Olympics, being the only athlete to have won three consecutive Olympic gold medals in an event (men’s 50 metre pistol) in shooting.[1] He holds the world record in both 10 metre air pistol and 50 metre pistol and held the final world record in 50 metre pistol until Jitu Rai broke it in 2017.[2]
(from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_Jong-oh )
It looks like 2016 was the last year this was an Olympic event:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_pistol_at_the_Olympics
But it still remains an ISSF event:
50 m Pistol was officially removed as an Olympic medal event in 2017, making the Rio games of 2016 the last for the “Free Pistol” shooters.[1][2] However, it is still part of other major ISSF competitions; most notably the World Shooting Championships
(from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISSF_50_meter_pistol )
BB
Prayers for you to heal quickly.
Hoping we don’t have to wait too long to see your accuracy tests. No one is expecting you to duplicate what you use to be able to do. Some of us older folks know usetah doesn’t live here anymore. Even so you shot competitively standing with a pistol at a high level. Being a reloader and being aware that different loadings affect accuracy I’ll be interested in your bullet tests.
Deck
Deck,
You and me, both!
BB
For the OCD-Nurds, FM pleads guilty to both descriptions, a little information about oregano essential oils; FM learns something new/useful in this blog, every day.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6152729/